The World Can Be Kind: How Psychological Support Helped Six-Year-Old Hlib Regain Confidence
Hlib is a six-year-old boy with eyes that seem to want to take in the whole world at once. Curiosity and a million questions every day — that was him before the war took away his home in the Kupiansk district. His family was forced to leave because of constant shelling that partially destroyed their house.
They found shelter in Kharkiv. Returning home is not even up for discussion for now, as it is still unsafe there. For Hlib, his mother is his protection, his support, and his source of stability. She carries the full weight of daily life and tries to give him enough attention, so he does not feel the burden of this new life so sharply. His father, a veteran, suffered a severe injury and is undergoing recovery. His father is far away, the city is unfamiliar, the home is destroyed. But in all of this, his mother is still Hlib’s one constant source of support.
After everything he had been through, the boy changed. He became anxious and withdrawn. He struggled to adjust to school and to new people. Even silence no longer felt safe. Hlib had trouble falling asleep and was startled by loud sounds he would not have noticed before. At his new school, he kept to himself, as if he had built a wall around himself and was hiding behind it.
His mother saw how much her son had changed and understood it would not pass on its own. She did not wait for things to get even worse, so she immediately reached out to the Voices of Children Foundation for help. Psychological sessions became Hlib’s first safe space. They were nothing like school lessons: no grades, no right or wrong answers.
Hlib quickly began to trust the psychologist. He drew and played with curiosity. And for the first time, he managed to speak about his worries and his joys. A fear spoken aloud does not disappear immediately. But it stops being a wall built between a child and the world. Hlib spoke about his fear and felt he was not left alone with it.
Gradually, the anxiety began to ease. Once named, an emotion loses some of its power. Hlib felt this for himself. He became calmer and more confident. He even started smiling on the way to school and began talking with classmates, as sessions with a speech therapist helped. He learned to pronounce words more clearly, and that gave him a greater sense of his own strength.
Today, Hlib is no longer afraid of his emotions because he knows how to cope with them. He is once again curious about everything. He laughs out loud, the way a six-year-old boy can.
Psychological support gave him back the feeling that he is not alone, that he is heard and loved. And most importantly, it gave him the chance to be a child, even with war all around him. Hlib now knows that the world, even if it has changed, can still be kind.
Author: Yuliia Didenko
This material was produced with financial support from UK aid from the UK Government, implemented by the Voices of Children Foundation within the PULSE National Consortium, coordinated by the Right to Protection Charitable Fund. The support of the UK Government for this project in Ukraine is provided through the SHARP component of its Humanitarian Assistance, Recovery and Protection Program.